Always expect the unexpected!

[DianaCanada]

Another unexpected situation turned up recently when I was researching a couple in Hull, Yorkshire who married in 1854 but no births found until 1864 and then there were five and perhaps six over the next ten years. I thought they had simply not registered earlier children, but the wife, who was widowed by 1911, stated that she’d had five children, three living.  The powers that were had crossed out her entry, as it was only supposed to be included with married couples. Hard to fathom ten years of infertility and then regular births for ten years.

[pinefamily]

Did the husband work away perhaps, or was he a guest of Her Majesty?

[DianaCanada]

Did the husband work away perhaps, or was he a guest of Her Majesty?

In 1861 he was a railway porter and by 1871 a coal dealer.  The couple were Thomas Christopher Ward and Eliza Wilkinson, married in 1853, not as I previously stated, 1854.

[susieroe]

Susie no the caravan dwellers were Newport wales.
I am Leicester based but don't have Leicester ancestors and don't know of  caravan communities here.

Thanks anyway. Now that was unexpected as I was sure you had deep Leicester roots!

[coombs]

I have a couple who wed in 1866 and their first child was born 1872. The couple said in the 1911 census they had 6 children born alive, 2 who had died. All found to be born inbetween 1872 and 1885. And the couple always lived in the same village during marriage.

[DianaCanada]

Perhaps it was a health issue for one or either of the couple.  Perhaps improved nutrition improved that, would need medical expertise!

[aghadowey]

Mother-in-law had an aunt who married in 1891 and had 14 children. If it wasn't for cemetery records I wouldn't have been able to prove family stories about many of the children died young.
1. daughter died 11 days old (bronchitis)
2. stillborn daughter 1894
3. stillborn son 1895
4. son 1896 died 16 hours old
5. son 1897 died 8 days old
6. son 1898 (survived)
7. stillborn daughter 1899
8. son 1900 (survived)
9. son 1902 (survived)
10. son 1904 died aged 4 months
11. daughter 1906 (survived)
12. son 1907 (survived)
13.daughter 1909 (survived)
14. daughter 1912 died age 17 years

[pinefamily]

It always saddens me to see the number of children who died young. Apart from sicknesses running through towns and villages, the child mortality rate definitely went up with the migration to the big cities.

[coombs]

A several year gap between marriage and first child can be a series of miscarriages the woman had before she had a successful pregnancy. Maybe they married because she was expecting a child whom was miscarried just before or after the wedding date, or even sadly on the date itself.